"This is real," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Morgan said. "It is."
"Who owns this?" Serafina asked. "Who's running all of this—the program, the ships, the... everything?"
"It's complicated," Morgan said. "The short version is: there's a network. Humans and aliens working together, buildingsomething that didn't exist before first contact. The matching program is part of it, but it's bigger than just us."
"Much bigger?"
"Much bigger." Morgan began walking toward the ship. "You'll understand more as your training progresses. For now, what you need to know is that we have resources. Earth resources, alien resources—more than any government, any corporation. The people who run this network don't think in terms of money the way humans do. They think in terms of outcomes."
"And the outcome they want is... what? Humans mating with aliens?"
Morgan glanced back at her. "Compatibility. Connection. Species that can bridge the gap between worlds." She paused. "It sounds strange, I know. It sounded strange to me too, once."
"Before Kyrax."
"Before Kyrax." A hint of something warm and private flickered across Morgan's expression. Then it was gone, replaced by her usual composure. "We should board. The window closes soon."
The ship's interior was nothing like Serafina expected. She'd imagined cold metal, harsh lights, the sterile efficiency of a military transport. Instead, the corridors were warm, the lighting soft, the surfaces smooth beneath her fingers in a way that felt almost organic. The air carried a faint scent—something green, something alive.
Morgan led her through the ship with the ease of someone who'd walked these corridors a hundred times. They passed a few figures in the corridors—crew, Serafina assumed. Some human. Some decidedly not. They passed a tall shape with skin like burnished copper, a slender form with too many joints, and eyes that glowed faintly in the low light.
They ignored her, gazes sliding past as if she were furniture, just another passenger being transported to wherever humans were taken when they stepped through doors that shouldn't exist.
Morgan showed her to a small cabin—private, quiet, equipped with a bed that molded to her body when she sat on it.
"The journey will take approximately four hours," Morgan said. "We'll be landing at the training compound before dawn. I suggest you rest."
"Where exactly are we going?"
"Costa Rica. A facility in the mountains, near the coast." Morgan paused at the door. "The island where the Hunt will take place is nearby. Isla Sombra."
"Shadow Island. Not at all ominous."
"You speak Spanish."
"I'm a detective in Los Angeles. You pick things up."
Morgan's mouth curved slightly. "Rest, Detective. Tomorrow, you begin learning how to hunt something that has never been hunted before."
She left, and the door sealed behind her with a sound like a breath being held.
Serafina sat on the bed that wasn't quite a bed, in a ship that shouldn't exist, flying through the night toward a future she couldn't imagine.
The anger was still there, but beneath it now, there was something else, a sense of... wonder, perhaps. She was on an alien ship. She was about to train to hunt an alien warrior. The universe was bigger and stranger than anything she'd ever believed, and she was about to become part of it.
It was terrifying and impossible, and it was the most alive she'd felt in years.
She didn't remember falling asleep, but she must have, because when the door to her cabin opened and Morganappeared in the frame, Serafina's body jerked awake with the sharp disorientation of interrupted dreams.
"We're landing," Morgan said. "Follow me."
The ship descended in darkness. Serafina felt it more than saw it—a subtle shift in pressure, a change in the hum of the engines, and then stillness. The air inside the ship seemed to thicken, grow warmer, and she knew before the doors opened that they had arrived somewhere very different from the Arizona desert.
They emerged onto a landing pad carved into the side of a mountain, and the jungle hit her like a wall.
The humidity was immediate and absolute, wrapping around her skin like a second layer, pressing into her lungs with each breath. Within seconds, a fine sheen of sweat bloomed across her forehead, her neck, the small of her back. The air was thick with moisture and life, so different from the dry heat of Los Angeles that her body didn't know how to calibrate.
